New Mac User

[WizSkinsO's]

Hey all,

Got a MacBook yesterday to bring to school. I've been a PC guy all my life so I was just wondering if anyone has any suggestions. The layout all looks very different to me so I'm doing my best to try and neutralize that--I've got Microsoft Office and Firefox as carryovers--but still definitely learning. Any books I should read? Programs I should download? Good widgets? Should I get Mac for Dummies? Do the training sessions at the store help? Any places to get music besides iTunes that won't give you viruses? Any applications I should add? Things I should do to make my experience cleaner or more enjoyable?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[SUSkinsFan]

Hey all' date='

Got a MacBook yesterday to bring to school. I've been a PC guy all my life so I was just wondering if anyone has any suggestions. The layout all looks very different to me so I'm doing my best to try and neutralize that--I've got Microsoft Office and Firefox as carryovers--but still definitely learning. Any books I should read? Programs I should download? Good widgets? Should I get Mac for Dummies? Do the training sessions at the store help? Any places to get music besides iTunes that won't give you viruses? Any applications I should add? Things I should do to make my experience cleaner or more enjoyable?

Any advice would be much appreciated.[/quote']There are free virus programs you can download from cnet.com, but I only have mine as a precaution. It hardly ever gets used.

As for apps, I would recommend Adium. It allows you to add all of your instant messaging accounts on one program.

I would also recommend Handbrake for ripping DVDs directly onto your hard drive and playing the files in iTunes (just google handbrake).

Widgets are fun at first but I hardly ever use them anymore. The ones I have are a doppler radar widget and a widget tell me movie times.

I wouldn't use the store sessions because you can really learn what you need to know just by playing around with it.

Congrats on the Mac man. I bought my first one in summer of 2007 and haven't looked back since. I will never buy another PC.

[Jofizz]

Macs are FTW. I never had any trouble with mine. Its weird at first, but you will soon realize you'll never switch back.

[DarrellsMyHero28]

Adium is good, I use Stickies all the time.

Use Firefox obviously, make sure you pick up Office for Mac.

I do use the widgets, there are some sports news ones and I use countdowns and the weather one.

Magic Hat lets you hide files, but the best Widget is "Callwave", it lets you send free text messages.

I'll think of some other stuff later.

[Joe Sick]

Screw Microsoft Office! Don't infect your shiny new computer with that. Get OpenOffice or NeoOffice for free.

Handbrake is a must have for ripping.

Audacity for audio editing.

Transmission for bit torrents.

Inkscape and The Gimp for photo and vector editing.

Delicious Library is awesome for keeping track of media and uses the built in webcam to scan barcodes.

I'm a fan of dropbox, as a free cloud storage solution.

I LOVE 1password for password management, auto-logins and storage of shopping info.

Carbon Copy Cloner is a great backup tool.

Download burn for simpler cd/dvd burning.

Toast is an option, but is not free.

Monolingual to get rid of all those languages you don't need and free up space. WhatSize also helps with that.

Also need Perian, a swiss army knife of video codecs.

I also run Growl notifications as well as the launcher program Quicksilver.

---

Edit: all of the above are FREE except for 1Password and Delicious Library. Check out MacHeist, its where I got my free 1password serial number last year.

[chipwhich]

Screw Microsoft Office! Don't infect your shiny new computer with that. Get OpenOffice or NeoOffice for free.

OpenOffice is garbage. I had to get MS Office for the work I do, OpenOffice won't do anything with MS Office documents with the least bit of formatting.

[DarrellsMyHero28]

Screw Microsoft Office! Don't infect your shiny new computer with that. Get OpenOffice or NeoOffice for free.

Handbrake is a must have for ripping.

Audacity for audio editing.

Transmission for bit torrents.

Inkscape and The Gimp for photo and vector editing.

Delicious Library is awesome for keeping track of media and uses the built in webcam to scan barcodes.

I'm a fan of dropbox, as a free cloud storage solution.

I LOVE 1password for password management, auto-logins and storage of shopping info.

Carbon Copy Cloner is a great backup tool.

Download burn for simpler cd/dvd burning.

Toast is an option, but is not free.

Monolingual to get rid of all those languages you don't need and free up space. WhatSize also helps with that.

Also need Perian, a swiss army knife of video codecs.

I also run Growl notifications as well as the launcher program Quicksilver.

---

Edit: all of the above are FREE except for 1Password and Delicious Library. Check out MacHeist, its where I got my free 1password serial number last year.

Ok most of that either went over my head or I'll never use it.

Can you explain Growl? I always see that somewhere but I never really use it.

Ok, I registered for MacHeist.

I don't really understand the site, I can only find a few things to download

[Joe Sick]

OpenOffice is garbage. I had to get MS Office for the work I do, OpenOffice won't do anything with MS Office documents with the least bit of formatting.

I guess OpenOffice is fine for a good percentage of the population. I use it at work, but only to copy and paste text/.doc files, print out excel docs, print out labels, mail merge. Very basic stuff. I've heard that its gotten a lot better since the universal version, but I don't really have that comparison to draw on. I format all my docs in Quark.

[RedlightG20]

OpenOffice is garbage. I had to get MS Office for the work I do, OpenOffice won't do anything with MS Office documents with the least bit of formatting.

Try a newer version of OO. I had it installed a few months back at a client's site when they lost their license keys for Office 2003. Haven't had a complaint about it.

[Joe Sick]

Ok most of that either went over my head or I'll never use it.

Can you explain Growl? I always see that somewhere but I never really use it.

Ok, I registered for MacHeist.

I don't really understand the site, I can only find a few things to download

Growl is just a universal notification for your Mac. I use the "Music Video" style, which just runs a semi-transparent bar across the bottom whenever something happens, like new mail appears, updates appear in your rss feed, a file finishes downloading, your dvd gets burnt, whatever...

I really think quicksilver is worth downloading. Instead of the quick search with command + space bar, you program another hot key where you can launch the app/file/image after you find it in search. I use ctrl+a;t+command+space to open it. For instance, to launch quark, I hit that key combo, the q + U, then enter, and the app opens.

Go ahead and download Flash, Perian and Flip4Mac right now. It will make your internet experience a lot easier.

[DarrellsMyHero28]

I have Flip4Mac, which does make it better and I think I'll check this other stuff out.

Thanks!

[Joe Sick]

Oh, yeah. MacHeist is a site that gives away different little apps. They also bundle a bunch of paid apps together for a great price. There is a treasure hunt or mystery or something that goes on in the forums, with impossible clues. It is pretty cool how people figure all those codes out.

Right now, for free, you get three apps - They'll unveil the other free apps as well as paid stuff slowly, with the clues and you can decide if you want to spend $50 on $200 worth of software.

[kevinklein]

Welcome!!!!

[WizSkinsO's]

Screw Microsoft Office! Don't infect your shiny new computer with that. Get OpenOffice or NeoOffice for free.

Handbrake is a must have for ripping.

Audacity for audio editing.

Transmission for bit torrents.

Inkscape and The Gimp for photo and vector editing.

Delicious Library is awesome for keeping track of media and uses the built in webcam to scan barcodes.

I'm a fan of dropbox, as a free cloud storage solution.

I LOVE 1password for password management, auto-logins and storage of shopping info.

Carbon Copy Cloner is a great backup tool.

Download burn for simpler cd/dvd burning.

Toast is an option, but is not free.

Monolingual to get rid of all those languages you don't need and free up space. WhatSize also helps with that.

Also need Perian, a swiss army knife of video codecs.

I also run Growl notifications as well as the launcher program Quicksilver.

---

Edit: all of the above are FREE except for 1Password and Delicious Library. Check out MacHeist, its where I got my free 1password serial number last year.

Wow. First of all, thanks a ton everyone. Second--lol--this is WAYYY over my head. Like, I have no idea what any of this means. I know Audacity because I use it with the baseball team I work for to cut player songs but doubt I'll ever need that for my own use. I guess I'm an absolute computer beginner basically since I didn't get to experience anything like these with Windows. I don't know what half of the things you said they can do even mean.

So, let's start over...complete basics, let's say. I got tigerlaunch. I got rid of Adium because it kept asking me over and over again to enter my pw and appeared to be screwed up. I don't want to go crazy overboard. I doubt I'm ever going to burn DVDs, use video vectors lol, need any language stuff...let's just say I basically use email, Word, FB, Youtube (one thing I've noticed is that videos on this thing...on ESPN, youtube, even apple's own site have been freezing constantly and going very slow...anything that corrects that?)...your very simple usage.

Sorry, I guess I wasn't very specific and prompted all that, lol. I appreciate it. I just am not nearly that high-tech.

So here's my re-phrased questions:

1) if you could recommend ONE ap even the very computer-illiterate person should have or thing he should do with his mac, what would it be?

2) how do you download music? i used to be a lime person...it gave me viruses though so now i'm legal on iTunes...is that what most people do? or is torrents or w/e how people get their songs?

again, your help is much appreciated. cross off any vector editing or w/e for me tho cus its way over my head. very basic basic stuff only im looking for here just to make sure i can use the interwebs, e-mail, documents, etc.

thanks.

[DarrellsMyHero28]

Figure out Adium, I LOVE it.

Use Acquisition for downloading, and set up Mail--its just like Outlook or whatever and its really useful for getting your E-mail.

Download Flip4Mac, it lets you play WindowsMedia videos.

[WizSkinsO's]

Figure out Adium, I LOVE it.

Use Acquisition for downloading, and set up Mail--its just like Outlook or whatever and its really useful for getting your E-mail.

Download Flip4Mac, it lets you play WindowsMedia videos.

Thanks. Guess I'll try Adium again. Wonder if I did something wrong in installing or they were just having some problems when I tried it? cuz it literally was asking me every 2 seconds for my aim pw.

Acquisition for downloading what? Like music and movies?

Got mail, thanks. Question though--is there a way to enter a second email on there? i.e., i got my AOL accouint up...but i have a gmail i'd like on there too...do you know any way to do that?

[DarrellsMyHero28]

Thanks. Guess I'll try Adium again. Wonder if I did something wrong in installing or they were just having some problems when I tried it? cuz it literally was asking me every 2 seconds for my aim pw.

Acquisition for downloading what? Like music and movies?

Got mail' date=' thanks. Question though--is there a way to enter a second email on there? i.e., i got my AOL accouint up...but i have a gmail i'd like on there too...do you know any way to do that?[/quote']

I remember having that issue before, I can't really help you but keep looking around and trying.

Acquisition is good for downloading music and such.

For Mail, you have to have the POP information, which you have to pay for to get from Yahoo Mail etc but you'll get it for your college account I assume.

And yes, there is a way to have more than one account, but as far as I know you can't get the POP info from GMail without paying.

[Joe Sick]

Question though--is there a way to enter a second email on there? i.e.' date=' i got my AOL accouint up...but i have a gmail i'd like on there too...do you know any way to do that?[/quote']

Preferences - under accounts tab - click on the plus button - enter your email setup information - will show up as folder inside main inbox

i use gmail, yahoo and verizon through mail...

Edit: Pirate bay for music (bit torrents), or you could just buy off iTunes. Last.fm for free streaming music.

[DarrellsMyHero28]

Preferences - under accounts tab - click on the plus button - enter your email setup information - will show up as folder inside main inbox

i use gmail, yahoo and verizon through mail...

How do you get your Yahoo to feed to it?

[Joe Sick]

How do you get your Yahoo to feed to it?

My yahoo is weird, because I have it "linked" to my verizon.net account. Go to the account tabs in preferences and use this with your pass and login to set it up.

incoming.yahoo.verizon.net

outgoing.yahoo.verizon.net

port 25 - no ssl

[DarrellsMyHero28]

Sweet, I'll try that.

Would my account have to be "linked" to my Verizon account also?

[Blackest Eyes]

Quicksilver is a freaking awesome program once you get the hang of it. It is basically an application launcher. You have to push a hotkey and then type in the program or something and you can open programs without touching your mouse or trackpad. You can also do things like assign hotkeys to open specific programs, like to open Firefox mine is Cmd+Option+F. It has a ton of awesome features.

Since OS X does not come with a built in app uninstaller, I got App Cleaner (free), which is awesome. It deletes all traces of programs similarly to another program called App Zapper, which is not free

If you do anything with .rar files, StuffItExpander is another good program to look into.

VLC Player is awesome and basically puts Quicktime to shame, so that would be cool to check out.

[G.A.C.O.L.B.]

1st: Tell every single person you meet about your new Mac.

2nd: Snort everytime someone talks about a problem with their PC and say, "That would never happen with my Mac."

3rd: Buy the latest iPod, buy the iPhone, buy AppleTV, buy anything that is made by Apple. Regardless of whether you need it or not.

4th: Regardless of what a conversation is about find a way to turn it into how your Apple stuff is the best and how non-Appleites are out of touch and behind the times.

Your transformation is now complete.

(Just kidding. My father is a big Apple guy and I swear the above is the "spiritual" path he has taken.)

[bobisimo]

I skip Flip4Mac and go straight for VLC. It plays everything.

Widgets on my dashboard are the post-it note, the calendar, the conversion utility, the clock and the weather gauge. They all come with your computer.

Then I download iStat Pro. It's a gauge that shows you how healthy your battery is, how much of your RAM and processor is in use, etc.

If I need to upload/download anything, I use FileZilla.

For torrents I use uTorrent, but I don't mind Transmission, either. I used that before uTorrent was available.

Oh yeah, skip the anti-virus software, too. Unless you're worried about sending viruses to your Windows-using friends, you should be OK without it. And, really, they should have anti-virus already, so why do you need to double-up?

[bobisimo]

I don't get Quicksilver. People say it's great because you type in what you want and it launches it. I'm already hitting "apple" and "space" at the same time - then typing in whatever I'm looking for - to do the same thing. And then there's the dock for oft-used programs. So what makes Quicksilver better? I'm actually asking, not trying to say Quicksilver is irrelevant. Is it just the other functionality the program provides? I always see it at the top of must-have lists, but I've never used it or felt it offered any benefit.